Facebook’s ‘Like’ Button Declared Illegal In Germany. I don't understand why? As per the information I've received that it transfers huge data. Do you guys really think, it is worthwhile?

ralphm
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2011-08-22T11:03:17Z —
#2

Looks like a bit of an overreaction to me. If you are going to go down that path, heck, go the whole hog and just ban Facebook.

ScallioXTX
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2011-08-23T07:31:58Z —
#3

It was declared illegal in just one state; not in the whole of Germany. It was banned because, and I quote

Schleswig-Holstein's data protection commissioner, Thilo Weicher, ordered the shutdown after an analysis by his office showed that Facebook builds profiles of users and non-users alike with the "like" button's data. Because such data collection violates Germany's data protection laws, Weicher has given websites operated in Schleswig-Holstein until September 30th to remove all "like" buttons.

@AgentHomes:I think Facebook cares a lot, since1. Germany is a big market2. this could be the first in a series of cases made against facebook

I am from Germany and in Germany people are very suspicious towards the IT/Internet giants(google, fb). For example there was also a great public debate (of course politicians see potential in this kind of debates) about Google Street View here.

nameslave
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2011-09-15T16:03:38Z —
#11

I guess it all stems from that some countries e.g in Europe and Canada (where I'm from) have stricter PRIVACY legislation (vs. e.g. the US). I remember Facebook actually made some changes to accommodate concerns raised by the Privacy Commissioner here a while back.

There is no pint of doing that. Surely it could be decided by some jealous person.

wardcosbyson
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2011-10-24T07:07:22Z —
#15

mortimerGER said:

@AgentHomes:I think Facebook cares a lot, since1. Germany is a big market2. this could be the first in a series of cases made against facebook

I am from Germany and in Germany people are very suspicious towards the IT/Internet giants(google, fb). For example there was also a great public debate (of course politicians see potential in this kind of debates) about Google Street View here.

It's actually really weird for me to hear news like this. I have heard several issues about facebook privacy in some countries but this is just way too complicated for me to handle. Why would they have to argue about this or about "google street view"? I might have to agree with ralph.m, they should have just banned facebook. I wonder what fb button they are going to label illegal next time around.

Stomme_poes
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2011-10-24T08:27:32Z —
#16

Why would they have to argue about this or about "google street view"?

Because banning a website in most western countries is too close to government censorship, which also scares people. If they are knowingly blocking FB in your country, what are they unknowingly blocking too? This was a popular topic in Australia, where they had/have a "public" blacklist (supposedly only of kiddie-pr0n sites) but also a secret blacklist. Which may or may not really be limited to kiddie-pr0n. See, because it's secret, the citizens don't know for sure, and have to completely trust their government. And that doesn't work in societies who think they are free.

So Germany discusses it. So citizens can decide with a vote or something what they want. Many people do not want their houses, cars and front yards showing up on the internet via Google Maps (even though Google blurs out faces and license plates, somewhere there are the original photos sitting around... suppose Google got hacked again and someone got ahold of those and posted them? So long as they (google) have the data, and that data sits on a machine with internet connection (which, who knows, maybe they do), this is possible. It's happened before).

So Germany banned street view, or it was banned (might not be anymore). A majority of citizens supported that. Next year, they may change their minds, who knows.

Anyway, the problem I think FB has is its own users: they seem to think they are somehow more private than they really are, which is why most people don't worry about it. It never occurs to them that maybe their health insurance companies or their employers might be checking out their profiles, let alone spammers and advertisers and crazy who-knows people. <-- this app does not ask anything MORE than any other FB app. It's simply more explicit in telling what exactly it wants access to. Your games and hugs and hearts and whatnot have exactly the same access, and you gave it to them.

The argument against privacy is always either: if you've got nothing to hide, then you must have no reason not to tell everyone absolutely everything about yourself, your home address and how much money you earn and walk around naked and candidly tell everyone about your herpes, because after all, you're not doing anything illegal and so have nothing to hide.Or it's "you chose to put that stuff online, therefore you must be okay with everyone knowing about it and discussing it".

The second one has more merit, except the problem is people don't seem to be aware of how the internet works and think telling their FB friends their hometown isn't the same as telling every stranger in the world. They don't see the connection at all sometimes.

My husband works for a company who places online personal notices for newspapers. The number of times someone has placed a photo or video and then call/email later and say "oh no, the image/video is showing up on Google! Can you remove it?"Of course he can't. Google's indexed it. That means it's Out There. There is no taking it back. Why didn't you think of that before uploading the file to a public, indexed-by-SE's site? Because people don't see the connection. They don't realise how the internet works, yet they use it regularly.

So I don't mind laws and things to help improve privacy but I'd much rather that kids get "internets 101" in school so people can make their own decisions and they won't be dumb ones. Just because internets looks easy doesn't mean you don't need to be taught some important things.

Heck my co-workers upstairs keep getting virusses. Likely because a) they click on or view emails with virusses and b) they click on stuff online. With Javascript on, with IE on Windows XP, and likely Java enabled too. And they are clicking on things that aren't safe. Like ads. Or Shoot The Monkey banners. Or fake "You have a message" dialogues. They could be trained to recognise these things, but they haven't been, and continue to make our internal network unsafe (no, we don't have any BOFH sysadmins around here).

ralphm
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2011-10-24T09:05:07Z —
#17

Stomme_poes said:

This was a popular topic in Australia, where they had/have a "public" blacklist (supposedly only of kiddie-pr0n sites) but also a secret blacklist. Which may or may not really be limited to kiddie-pr0n. See, because it's secret, the citizens don't know for sure ...

Thanks to WikiLeaks, we know that legitimate sites have been blocked too.

samanime
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2011-10-24T16:59:45Z —
#18

I think this is very goofy.

The cookie advertiser thing I can see. It is kind of a stealthy gathering of information that nobody really knows about (aside from web developers and the like).

The FB Like button is COMPLETELY different though. Nobody is forcing you to click that button. If you don't want to have your likes known, don't click a Like button. Simple.

However, I don't think this is going to be a big chain reaction. I think this commissioner is just a bit extreme.

Stomme_poes
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2011-10-25T20:00:35Z —
#19

Nobody is forcing you to click that button.

No, people are clicking it out of stupidity and ignorance. And nobody's forcing anybody to accept cookies from 3rd party ads, are they?

If they completely understand what they're doing when they click it, and they still want to, that's fine. But that's not the case.

The cookie thing is going to screw up e-commerce. Why? Because lawmakers aren't tech-heads and they don't understand the difference between a session cookie and a 3rd-party (or 4th or 5th party!) ad serving up cookies. But nothing is preventing people from blocking cookies all on their own, is there? No.

samanime
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2011-10-25T21:29:25Z —
#20

I disagree that you aren't being forced to accept the cookies. Yes, you can turn it off. But most people don't know that and the default is "on". Also, I never said I support it. In fact, I am quite against it. However, I can at least see their reasoning behind it (even if it is flawed... does someone having an anonymous collection of your actions really hurt you? Anyone can get that information if you visit their site).

I do agree that a lot of people click on it without understanding the full impact of their actions. However, making it illegal is a step too far. Putting your hand on a lit stove is going to hurt, a lot. Younger kids do it because they don't know the impact of their actions and do it out of ignorance. They quickly learn though, we don't make stoves illegal. =p

I also like your Internet 101 idea, and I have seen a few news stories where some schools are essentially doing that (to a lesser degree, but better than nothing). It is kind of like driving a car... you can probably figure it out just by trial and error, but it's going to be ugly.